Hurricane Irma lashes Caribbean islands as Florida braces for hit

Civil-defense
members in Fajardo, Puerto Rico, on Wednesday as Hurricane Irma
howled past the US territory after thrashing several smaller
Caribbean islands.Alvin
Baez/Reuters

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Hurricane Irma, one of the most
powerful Atlantic storms in a century, howled past Puerto Rico
on Wednesday after thrashing several smaller Caribbean islands
with tree-snapping winds, drenching rains and pounding surf on
a collision course with Florida.

At least four people were reported killed on four different
islands by Irma, which weather forecasters have described as a
"potentially catastrophic" Category 5 storm, the highest US
classification for hurricanes.

The dual-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda was especially
hard hit. The northernmost island, Barbuda, home to roughly
1,800 people, was "totally demolished," with 90% of all
dwellings there leveled, Prime Minister Gaston Browne said,
according to island television broadcasts.

Browne said one person was confirmed killed on Barbuda. A
second storm-related fatality, that of a surfer, was reported
on Barbados, and the French government said at least two people
were killed in the Caribbean island territories of Saint Martin
and Saint Barthélemy, with power knocked out on both.

Irma, with top sustained winds of 185 mph, was on track to
reach Florida on Saturday or Sunday, becoming the second major
hurricane to hit the US mainland in as many weeks.

While Irma's intensity could fluctuate, and its precise course
remained uncertain, the storm was expected to remain at least a
Category 4 before arriving in Florida.

Two other hurricanes formed Wednesday. Katia in the Gulf of
Mexico posed no threat to the US, according to US forecasters,
but Hurricane Jose in the open Atlantic, about 1,000 miles east
of the Caribbean's Lesser Antilles islands, could also
eventually threaten the US mainland.

The flurry of severe storm activity comes after Hurricane
Harvey claimed about 60 lives and caused property damage
estimated as high as $180 billion after pummeling the Gulf
Coasts of Texas and Louisiana with torrential rains and severe
flooding.

Florida emergency management officials, chastened by Harvey's
devastation, began evacuations days in advance of Irma's
arrival, ordering all tourists to leave the Florida Keys, a
resort archipelago off the state's southern tip, starting
Wednesday morning. Evacuation of residents from the Keys was to
begin Wednesday evening.

A
member of the Emergency Operations Committee monitoring the
trajectory of Hurricane Irma in Santo Domingo, Dominican
Republic, on Wednesday.Ricardo
Rojas/Reuters

'The big one'

Florida's normally storm-jaded residents appeared to be taking
the warnings seriously, too.

"A lot of times they end up having hurricane parties instead of
evacuating," Monroe county spokeswoman Cammy Clark told Reuters
by phone. "That's been the opposite this time around."

In Cuba, just 90 miles south of the Keys, authorities posted a
hurricane alert for the island's central and eastern regions,
as residents in Havana, the capital, were seen waiting in lines
to stock up on foodstuffs, water, and gasoline.

The eye of Irma was passing just north of Puerto Rico late
Wednesday, buffeting the US island territory's capital, San
Juan, with heavy downpours and strong winds that scattered tree
limbs across roadways.

"The winds that we are experiencing right now are like nothing
we have experienced before," Gov. Ricardo Rossello of Puerto
Rico told CNN. "We expect a lot of damage, perhaps not as much
as was seen in Barbuda."

At least half of Puerto Rico's homes and businesses lost
electricity by nightfall, according to a Twitter message posted
by an island utility executive.

Aerial television footage of Barbuda, a tiny island just 250
miles east of Puerto Rico, showed a desolate, flooded landscape
shorn of trees and foliage, littered with debris and overturned
vehicles.

Among the higher-end property losses on the island was the
Paradise Found Nobu Resort, partially owned by Hollywood screen
star Robert De Niro, according to Stan Rosenfield, a spokesman
for the actor.

The Dutch islands of Saba and Sint Eustatius also were hit,
with damage believed to be extensive, according to the
Netherlands ambassador to the United Nations, Karel van
Oosterom.

On its current path the core of Irma, which the NHC said marked
the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean and
one of the five most forceful storms to hit the Atlantic basin
in 82 years, was expected to scrape the northern coast of the
Dominican Republic and Haiti on Thursday. It was on a track
that would put it near the Turks and Caicos and southeastern
Bahamas by Thursday evening.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Trump resort in storm path

US President Donald Trump said he and aides were monitoring
Irma's progress. "But it looks like it could be something that
will be not good. Believe me, not good," he told reporters.

Trump, whose waterfront Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach,
Florida, could take a direct hit from the storm, has already
approved emergency declarations for Florida, Puerto Rico, and
the US Virgin Islands, mobilizing federal disaster relief
efforts. He spoke with governors of all three by telephone on
Wednesday, the White House said.

Gov. Rick Scott of Florida said Irma could be more devastating
than Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5 storm that struck the state
in 1992 and still ranks as one of the costliest ever in the US.

Residents in most coastal communities of densely populated
Miami-Dade County were ordered to move to higher ground
beginning at 9 a.m. ET on Thursday, Mayor Carlos Gimenez
announced on Wednesday. The evacuation orders will affect more
than 100,000 residents, the Miami Herald reported.

Gasoline stations around the state struggled to meet rising
demand of motorists anxious to top off their tanks as Irma
approached, with some locations running dry Wednesday.

Scott told a news conference in the Keys that 7,000 National
Guard troops would report for duty on Friday, ahead of the
storm's expected arrival.

Statewide emergency declarations were issued in both North and
South Carolina, and Gov. Nathan Deal of Georgia declared an
emergency for six coastal counties in anticipation of Irma's
arrival.